Homebrew: Tal Kanath as a Fighting Style

I have a Fighting Style submitted to PCI (so can’t paste it here) that does do that at Tier I. Its for a specific weapon trick that doesn’t do any damage, though.

At Tier III a skill substitution is made; again for a specific LMT (which is also limited to once per scene).

Both of those are *entirely* within the story for the style.

I’m certainly no one officlal. It seems no one else shares a concern of substituting non-combat skills for combat skills. I just recommend following the fighting style format set out in the Codex of Heroes for most things.

John

I was reading a basic analysis of American law and the author was remarking on how some of the modern legal logjams are caused by decisions that are made in pursuit of a end (“I want people to stop urinating in public, here’s a law punishing it”) instead of a model (“I want laws that discourage public contagion on an individual level, here’s a law broadly forbidding execreting bodily substances outside restrooms”) and how this later results in unintended, sometimes costly, consequences. Allowing a non-Combat skill to work as a Combat skill is hazarding that principle.
Rules discourse can certainly get legalistic as well, and I can see your point.

My interest is that Thrown is in my experience dubiously useful, and Blade on the Wind is an unattractive combat talent. Seeing that patched would be terrific as it bugs me that Tal’Kanath feels so lackluster.

My kvetch about BotW is how it’s tied to Thrown, that it can’t be Adapted, and is really little better than just striking with the weapon. It’s like getting Throw the Blade as a 1-use trick combined with a minor air rune.

I have been in a situation wherein I was struck by how useful Throw the Blade could have been, but it was just that: solitary and singular, and the day was carried anyway.

We hereabouts of these forums get various examples of builds and ideas, but are there any focused around quick, effective dagger use? On paper playing murder with short distance, low-clock volleys of daggers could ooze potential -footsy around using ally positioning to hamper enemy movements while stinging them with blades because you’re constantly in your optimal range.
Or you could carry something with Mighty Swing, walk over the extra 10′ and just kill them the way Nier likes to get it done. No messing around with the -4 for shooting into melee there, nor investing in talents to bolster mediocre weapons.

The minimum speed rules tend to work out to locals favoring Heirloom spd 4/5, d8/d10 weapons with solid basic tricks over carrying a spd 3, 1d4+1 Heirloom Dagger that might struggle to get through AR 3 on a minion.
I’m figuring the math by dividing a die’s average by it’s number of ticks in a basic strike to get 1.125 for a spd 4/d8 versus .833 per spd 3/1d4+1 dagger -not counting things like Sweeping Strike or the -4 ranged penalty or movement or that having a single higher-quality weapon is much simpler then finding and hoarding multiple Exceptional daggers. Gods help you if you throw one and lose it.

Anyway. As I see it Thrown and throwing weapons are a problem, and being able to fix that even a little by way of a homebrew Tal’Kanath is a terrific thing. That said, I respect reservations about changing skill utility though I believe an exception could be tolerable in taking Dancing, nearly worthless on it’s own, and expanding it’s use to include Throwing, which is very nearly as pointless, in very specific instance.

Also, I couldn’t remember if Fine quality adds damage to the weapon. If it does, that changes the averages -but since all examples would be gaining that bonus, it doesn’t change how they stack up.